>It's more a matter of choice and looking ahead. Now if I've said that these limitations (no memos and all fields either in group by or aggregate functions) are ridiculous, I'm probably not alone, and sooner or later the standard may change in that area. A simple AsIs(field) aggregate function would solve the second one (or both), wouldn't it?

Yes, there are a few tricks like that we can apply. I applied some here and there but for most, that was a no go as a full reconstruction of the SQL had to be done.